Alabama gymnastics barely snuck back into the top 10 of this week’s rankings, now that the regular season has officially concluded. The Crimson Tide is 10th with a 196.9 National Qualifying Score. That’s 0.08 better than last week’s NQS, which put UA at 11th.
Since it is the fifth-best SEC team, Alabama will compete in the afternoon portion of Saturday’s 2019 SEC Championships at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. It’ll be up against No. 12 Auburn (196.695), No. 19 Missouri (196. 385) and No. 20 Arkansas (196.31). The top four teams in the conference – No. 3 LSU (197.68), No. 4 Florida (197.675), No. 8 Georgia (197.195) and No. 9 Kentucky (197.085) – get the night slot.
Session I will start at 3 p.m. and air on SEC Network. Session II is set for 7 p.m. on ESPN2.
Due to its seeding, Alabama will go through the meet in Olympic order: vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise. UA is ranked seventh on floor (49.375), ninth on vault (49.225) and 13th on both bars (49.235) and beam (49.21).
The Crimson Tide finished out its regular conference schedule 4-3. Alabama defeated Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas and Auburn (twice, but Elevate the Stage doesn’t count toward its SEC record) but lost to LSU, Florida and Kentucky.
Last year, LSU won its second consecutive SEC championship. Alabama and Florida finished second and third, respectively.
Alabama has nine titles overall. Its last one came in 2015, which was Dana Duckworth’s first season as head coach.
